8/21/10

Inception is a film that will remind you of other films: The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Waking Life, What Dreams May Come…. There are even elements of director Christopher Nolan’s own Memento, though the latter is a far superior film to Inception.

Inception has been hyped to the gills and it has a clever hook and a complex plot that has left some viewers reeling. To grasp all its twists and turns would require multiple screenings, though to our eyes the movie just isn’t good enough to warrant this. So before we go any further, here’s the two-sentence verdict: Forget the ballyhoo and enjoy this film for what it is—a better-than-average summer film that’s basically a high-tech chase movie. It’s stylish and has a high wow factor, but don’t confuse narrative incoherence with profundity.

In a nutshell the movie is about the possibility of dreaming within a dream. It is set in the near future and Dean Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a sophisticated thief who invades people’s dreams to extract profitable information from them. The setup is that Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants Cobb to go a level deeper by having Cobb enter a corporate rival’s dream to plant an idea (the “inception”) in his subconscious that will ultimately benefit Saito’s firm. Can one plant a dream within a dream? Yes—and Cobb’s incentive is a chance at redemption. He pioneered the technique on his own wife, Mal (the delicious Marion Cotillard), but it didn’t work according to plan. Cobb assembles a crack team to do the job, the keystone of which is Ariadne (Ellen Page), a precocious lass who can find her way though mental labyrinths (get it?) and who suspects that Cobb has undisclosed issues that could endanger them all.

If you get lost in the layer-upon-layer-upon layer, there are three things to remember. First, psychologists believe than if we dream our own deaths, we die in fact. Conversely, dreams do not conform to waking logic. It is thus possible in a dream that the bad guys never shoot straight and you can literally weave your way around machine gun fire. Finally, insofar as anyone knows there is no limit to what the imagination can conjure in the dream state.

The last of these means that Inception is fascinating to view in places. The worlds constructed in the mind are far more interesting than what we see in cartoon-like fantasies such as Avatar simply because the mental constructs are simultaneously exotic, yet vaguely plausible. The film is strongest when it lurks in the imagination, both its marvelous and its dark sides. There is a wonderful scene—one of the simpler set ups, actually—in which Ariadne takes control of a dream by building a fortress of mirrors around herself. Likewise, Cobb’s dream city yields nothing to futurists and sci-fi writers.

All the performances are strong, except for Watanabe. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, his English simply isn’t good enough and it’s exceedingly difficult to make out what he’s mumbling. That’s a problem when he’s one of the three major characters. But where the film suffers most is that it’s often blinded by its own flash. There are way too many chase scenes, explosions, and shootouts. Since we know they’re dreams in the first place, the only suspense is whether those involved pull out in time. In essence, the film’s violence is not only gratuitous, it’s pointless. We found ourselves growing bored by endless shoot-em-ups in the service of nothing and these consumed screen time that could have been devoted to developing the character back stories more fully. (Here’s all you’ll learn about Ariadne: young, perky, brilliant.) And when we get right down to it, half the story is about which mega-corporation gets the upper hand, not exactly something we care about or should.

Still, Inception is a mind-blower in its best scenes and one should give Nolan credit for challenging audiences and for having ideas more provocative than anything else you’ll see this summer. For a far better take on the alternative worlds the mind can build, rent Synecdoche, but see Inception on the big screen—the visuals will linger long after you’ve forgotten what “big” issue you were supposed to contemplate.

8/17/10

Need more proof that common sense is as endangered as the U.S. dollar? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I offer Exhibits A and B: the recent Massachusetts sales tax-free weekend and the ongoing controversy over building a mosque near the 9/11 Ground Zero site.

Exhibit A: Last weekend you could buy items priced at $2500 or less and avoid the Massachusetts sales tax of 6.25%. I’d be the first to say that the Mass sales tax is too high, not to mention the fact that all sales taxes are, by nature, regressive and should be abolished in favor of true (and loophole-free) graduated income taxes. But let’s get a grip, folks. More than a half billion dollars worth of retail goods were purchased, depriving the Commonwealth of about $23 million in revenue, according to one estimate.

No, this isn’t a plea for higher taxes—it’s an object lesson on psychology. I’m happy some of us got to keep a small hunk of change, but that’s exactly what it was, a small chunk. Think it through. How excited would you be if you picked up the paper and saw that a local retailer was offering a 10% off weekend sale? You’d probably yawn, because this happens all the time whereas the tax-free weekend is just once a year. Fine, but let’s say you have your eyes on a $1000 TV. If you bought it last weekend you paid exactly a thousand bucks and pocketed the $62.50 in sales tax. If next weekend the store has a 10% off sale, you’d pay just $956.25 for the same item even after the Commonwealth took its $56.25 share. So what’s the appeal of the tax-free weekend? Do we really think we’re “sticking it to the man,” or are we just victims of mass deception?

What’s this have to do with Exhibit B, the mosque dispute? The same lack of common sense is involved in each. Let’s start with President Obama, who came down on the side of allowing the mosque to go forward on the grounds of freedom of religion. Talk about being morally right and politically stupid! The polls are quite clear on this—only about a third of Americans agree the mosque should be built, so the president has just foolishly squandered a lot of political capital on an opinion he had no business voicing in the first place. (What’s wrong with saying this is for New Yorkers to decide?)

But before you liberals get on your high moral horse, let me add that if Obama was foolish, the mosque planners are morons. The morality of this issue is secondary; rightly or wrongly this project is perceived as Muslims giving America the finger. I don’t think that’s the case, but the planners are guilty of enormous insensitivity. Even worse, they are guilty of putting Muslims in peril. Why not just put a sign in front that says, “Welcome All Wacko Vandals and Bombers?” If this mosque is ever built it is sure to become a target for those who would exact revenge for 9/11. I wish to be resolutely clear: I do not condone vigilantism or attacks on Muslims. But only the starry-eyed and the brain-dead could fail to understand that this project in this place is just a really horrible idea. If the goal is prove that Islam is a religion of peace, this is a very poor way of mending torn fences. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that violence will follow construction and that it will make it even harder for Muslims to regain trust.

I propose an addendum to the First Amendment “free exercise” clause that would require all public actions to pass common sense muster before they can be enacted. This may sound like Big Brother Government, but the little brothers are so easily duped that it’s for their own good.

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